Gah, our email system at work makes my brain hurt. I recently had to change my password, and knowing how picky it was, I carefully read all the rules. Mix of upper and lower case - check. At least one non-alphabetic character - check. At least eight characters long - check. Can't be too similar to your last five passwords - check.

I trumphantly entered it and was promptly told "NOT COMPLEX ENOUGH". That's it. No explanation about how to make it more "complex".

After trying five more times, I finally gave up and used the "generate a new password for me" function - which I promptly forgot.

I worked at a place that trotted out a very high security, state-of-the-art-secret, database for our very private, private information. To make sure it was really secure, we had to come up with a non-word password that contained capital letters, numbers and special symbols. We couldn't reuse and it could tell if we were trying to use numbers to replace letters to make it look like a real word. (So passwords like C00kie$ were out.) So in essence, we had to remember a new 8 letter combination of gibberish every 30 days.

On 90% of the workstations, there was a sticky note with the password to the very secret database. Security WIN!

And the other 10 percent have a Word file called "passwords." (Why, yes, yes I do! It's password protected, with a password I use nowhere else, and the passwords in it are coded. N*W* has meaning to me and to DH, but not to anyone who manages to get into that file.)

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~It's true. Money can't buy happiness. You have to turn it into books first. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gah, our email system at work makes my brain hurt. I recently had to change my password, and knowing how picky it was, I carefully read all the rules. Mix of upper and lower case - check. At least one non-alphabetic character - check. At least eight characters long - check. Can't be too similar to your last five passwords - check.

I trumphantly entered it and was promptly told "NOT COMPLEX ENOUGH". That's it. No explanation about how to make it more "complex".

After trying five more times, I finally gave up and used the "generate a new password for me" function - which I promptly forgot.

I worked at a place that trotted out a very high security, state-of-the-art-secret, database for our very private, private information. To make sure it was really secure, we had to come up with a non-word password that contained capital letters, numbers and special symbols. We couldn't reuse and it could tell if we were trying to use numbers to replace letters to make it look like a real word. (So passwords like C00kie$ were out.) So in essence, we had to remember a new 8 letter combination of gibberish every 30 days.

On 90% of the workstations, there was a sticky note with the password to the very secret database. Security WIN!

I have an Excel database at home that is locked under its own complicated (but sensible to me) password where all my passwords are listed: 118 of them. I don't like using the same one for anything and I use complicated combinations of letters, unusual symbols and numbers, not necessarily in that order.

What I do is pick a phrase or Bible verse, something like that, and use the first letters of the phrase. So you could do something like P118:1GtttLfHig;Hlef, which would be Psalm 118:1 "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever". It's fairly easy to remember and gives you a nice mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and a symbol (the colon, sometimes a semi-colon). I use it for a site that requires a 14-22 character password... eek! You can do it with other phrases instead of Bible verses, but I like Bible verses because of the built-in colon that provides a "special character." With other stuff, you either need to include punctuation or find some other way to add one, if it's required.

I do something similar, but with poems! I have a few favorite poems, so I'll use the lines for passwords int he same manner you do the verses.

I also do something similar, but it's with the scores of various favorite classical music pieces.

I use taxonomic classifications of various species. Latin and Greek names work well, particularly if you add in some gene names.

What I do is pick a phrase or Bible verse, something like that, and use the first letters of the phrase. So you could do something like P118:1GtttLfHig;Hlef, which would be Psalm 118:1 "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever". It's fairly easy to remember and gives you a nice mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and a symbol (the colon, sometimes a semi-colon). I use it for a site that requires a 14-22 character password... eek! You can do it with other phrases instead of Bible verses, but I like Bible verses because of the built-in colon that provides a "special character." With other stuff, you either need to include punctuation or find some other way to add one, if it's required.

I do something similar, but with poems! I have a few favorite poems, so I'll use the lines for passwords int he same manner you do the verses.

I also do something similar, but it's with the scores of various favorite classical music pieces.

I use taxonomic classifications of various species. Latin and Greek names work well, particularly if you add in some gene names.

This occurred yesterday.It was late afternoon and I went to a nearby Wendys for lunch. There was exactly 1 car in the parking lot and no drive thru line.I am greeted by an automated voice welcoming me to Wendys, then a disembodied human voice asks to take my order.

Me: Number 5 with a Diet Coke, please.DHV: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?Me: Number 5 with a Diet Coke, please.DHV: What size? Small, Medium or Large.Me: Oh, small is fine.DHV: So, just a small Diet Coke?Me: No, a Number 5 with a small Diet CokeDHV: Ok, so it's a number 8 with a small Diet Coke?Me: No. Please pay attention. It's a Number 5 with a small Diet Coke.(pause)DHV: please drive to the windowSo, I drive to the window. The manager (I can see her name tag) is there and says, "that's 6.99 and please do not ever speak to my employee like that again."I am dumbfounded, annoyed and just plain over this entire exchange.Me: Cancel my order because I can't figure out how, for the life of me, what was wrong with my correcting your employee after he repeatedly got my order wrong.

And I drive off.

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"Oh people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that" - Homer Simpson

I am generally pretty blunt and even I found this to be rude. I don't go through a drive through often but I often enough to know the sound system is not crystal clear. I just don't see what purpose the bolded had other than to shame or stress someone working for minimum wage.

I have to agree with TurtleDove on this one. The most likely issue is an audio problem, and even if that's the employee's inability to hear/decipher and not the headset, treating him like he's not paying attention is rude. If you'd left just that one sentence out, you'd be completely in the clear, so next time I'd go with blaming the sound system.

I thought about that, but newmommy had already said she wanted a number 5 that the employee appeared to acknowledge, and then seemed to forget about once she'd said she wanted a small. Plus I've never had that much problem with the audio at a fast-food place.

Me neither. I've worked in a drive thru window and sometimes had issues but it was often because the person ordering had their radio on or there were several people talking in the vehicle so I couldn't easily make out what was being ordered.

And now I want Wendy's.

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

"I thought about that, but newmommy had already said she wanted a number 5 that the employee appeared to acknowledge, and then seemed to forget about once she'd said she wanted a small. Plus I've never had that much problem with the audio at a fast-food place."

There are two parts of this. Firstly, just because the average employee/audio system works properly, that doesn't mean that this particular person or sound system did. Secondly, he may have repeated the number five but then thought he heard her say number eight and so he changed to try to follow her. Again, this could easily have been a difficulty understanding her and not him letting his attention wander, and the back-and-forth in the conversation seems to indicate he was giving her his full attention. In any case, telling him to pay attention in the circumstance described like he was a distracted schoolchild was condescending, and being condescending is pretty much always rude.